


Touchy subjects

by Roshwen



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: And by god she's going to get one, Basically my excuse to write almost 4000 words about Jake and Ezekiel hugging Cassandra, Cassandra needs a hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 08:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: Cassandra is touch starved. Jake and Ezekiel are more than willing to help her out.





	Touchy subjects

The first time one of them touches her, everything stops for a second.

They’re in a forest in Germany and they need her to calculate the path of the sun to find the right stone so they can find the crown of king Arthur and stop an evil cult from getting at it first. It’s incredibly weird and very exciting and it also kind of hurts because Flynn is looking at her with boundless faith in her abilities and she is going to betray him. She is going to betray them all.

But first there are numbers and formulas dancing before her eyes, starting off in a slow waltz as they always do. The trick is to keep a hold of them so she can find the rhythm and dance along. It works most of the time, as long as things don’t get too complicated. But unfortunately calculating the exact path of the sun in this exact part of the world for one exact day of the year is _very_ complicated and the numbers get away from her, turning and whirling before her eyes so she can barely keep up, every pattern evoking another one and another one and another one until the trees and the stones and the people around her all fade away and only the smell of oranges is left.

Suddenly there’s a hand grabbing hers and another hand on her shoulder and that in itself is shocking enough to pull her back. Jake’s hands are rough and calloused but their warmth is searing into her skin and for a moment, the fact that someone is touching her completely blocks out the noise of the numbers in her head. She can’t remember the last time she voluntarily let someone hold her like that but it feels _good._ It feels like she can suddenly breathe again without even realizing she was suffocating before. At the same time it’s getting kind of hard to breathe because she cannot focus on anything besides Jake’s hand in hers and his solid bulk standing next to her. For a second, she has to fight the irrational urge to crawl into his arms completely, wrap herself around him and let him hold her tight. But there are so many reasons that would be a spectacularly bad idea that even she can’t begin to count them all, so she tells him about the oranges and the kitchen table and her father’s checkbook. And Jake smiles at her and squeezes her hand and she wants to cry.

Then Jake takes his hand away because he needs to build a welding torch out of the picnic lunch she brought. When he lets go, Cassandra feels like she’s breathing and suffocating at the same time again and she realizes she is in even more trouble than she thought.

Magic is released back into the world, Flynn almost dies, the Library is lost and everything is terrible. Because Jake looks at her with mistrust and hurt in his eyes and that stings, even though she knows he is completely in the right. The others seem to have stepped right over her betrayal and welcomed her back into the fold with open arms, for which she is grateful. But Jake does not trust easy and she stomped all over the little trust he gave her, so she knows it’s only fair he keeps his distance from now on. No matter how desperately she wants that early closeness back.

There’s a little glimmer of hope when they find a golden apple which makes things go very fuzzy for a little bit until everything swims back into focus and she is leaning against Jake’s chest, his arm wrapped around her waist. She stiffens immediately because _this can’t be real_ but she does not move away. His voice is gentle as he explains to Flynn about her notebook and how he pays attention and if she moved _just so_ she could tuck her face against his shoulder and hold on to him a little longer and he might even let her. But she doesn’t. Jake hands her her clothes and then they’re off after Eve and Flynn who somehow both got a hold of the apple at the same time and Cassandra tries not to pay to much attention to the lingering echo of a warm hand pressed against her side.

She thinks it might just be Jake. She thinks she might be developing a slight crush on the guy and that must be why his touch is affecting her so much. But then Ezekiel starts getting more and more comfortable around his team, which demonstrates itself in more and more physical contact. He punches Jake in the arm, he claps Jenkins on the shoulder (and pats him on the ass too, just to see the look on his face), he mock wrestles with Eve while she tries not to roll her eyes and kick his butt too hard and every time he comes near Cassandra, he always reaches out and tugs her hair, pokes her side, pets her sweater. They are always tiny touches, there one second and gone the next, but every time she feels it, her heart stops beating for a couple of seconds and she has to remind herself to keep breathing.

When they go to the town built by Nikola Tesla, she has to make a terrible decision but she does it, she makes the call a Librarian is supposed to make. And Jenkins puts his hand on her shoulder and takes her outside, where Eve is already waiting next to a very confused looking Ezekiel. She is smiling and before Cassandra knows it, Eve is hugging her and telling her how well she’s done. Eve’s arms wrap around her shoulders and it feels like an electrical current is running through her, leaving her trembling and gasping for air. She lets go of Eve almost immediately, because now is _not the time,_ not while Jake needs them and not while they can still try to make things right. But in that moment Cassandra realizes there might be something else going on here than just an ill-advised crush on two cute guys at the same time.  


It’s two weeks later and they’re in the Annex, enjoying a rare lull between two cases, when matters come to a head. Cassandra is sitting at her desk and she’s trying to read a folio about the rule of three, but the book is ancient, the handwriting is terrible and the language is so dense even Jake cannot help her. He is standing next to her, scowling at the pages like they have somehow wronged him personally and he shakes his head. ‘Sorry Cassie,’ he says, absentmindedly putting a hand on her shoulder, ‘I got nothing.’

It’s too much. Jake’s hand is like a fire burning through her shirt and Cassandra is suddenly so very cold. She wants to turn around, plaster herself against Jake and drown herself in his warmth but Ezekiel is there and she is not sure Jake has completely forgiven her yet, so she can’t. Instead she sits still, breathes in and out and says: ‘Well, thank you anyway,’ in a voice that is surprisingly steady. Then she carefully closes the book, gets up and bolts for the Library.

‘Crap,’ Ezekiel mutters as Cassandra’s chair scrapes back across the wooden floorboards. Jake turns around just in time to see a flash of red hair disappear into the hallway. ‘What the…’

He looks at Ezekiel, who is standing next to the clippings book and looking worried and _that_ is never a good sign. ‘What just happened?’

Ezekiel mouth quirks. ‘We happened. Or, in this specific instance, you did.’

Jake glares at him. ‘Don’t go all cryptic on me now, Jones. She’s been acting weird ever since the Library came back so if you know what’s going on, just tell me.’ A thought hits him and his blood suddenly turns ice cold. ‘It’s not… it’s not the…’ He can’t even finish the question, just looks at Ezekiel with terror in his eyes and his heart in his throat. ‘It’s not that, is it?’

Ezekiel shakes his head. ‘Nah. She hasn’t seen her neurologist in ages and she hasn’t had a headache for weeks. I think she’s good in that department. Or you know, as good as can be.’

‘Thank god,’ Jake mutters, sagging with relief. Then he looks at Ezekiel again. ‘How do you know she hasn’t seen her neurologist? You keepin’ tabs on us?’

‘Of course I am,’ Ezekiel says. ‘I’m keeping tabs on all of you guys.’

And Jake thought he had a hard time trusting people. ‘OK, so if it’s not the… _that,_ then why did she just take off like that?’

For a second, he thinks Ezekiel is going to leave him hanging again. He is staring into the hallway with an expression that Jake has never seen before. It looks like a mix of worry and affection, but it’s tinged with a sadness that looks incredibly out of place on a guy who is always hiding everything behind a sarcastic grin. But just as Jake opens his mouth to ask Ezekiel again what is wrong with Cassandra, Ezekiel sighs and says: ‘You want the long version or the short one?’

‘Short version, Jones.’

‘She’s touch starved. We’ve been touching her and it’s causing some kind of mental overload.’

Jake mulls this over for a moment. ‘Okay, I’m gonna need the long version.’

‘Thought so,’ Ezekiel says, sitting himself down on the edge of his desk. Jake sits down too because this is shaping up to be the kind of conversation you do need to sit down for.

‘Okay,’ Ezekiel starts. ‘I’m assuming you know what being touch starved is?’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ Jake says. He’s never experienced it, though. He might have hated his life back in Oklahoma for a number of reasons, but there had always been friends, he had always had family and he had never been alone. He’s never been left starving for affection. Not like… ‘Shit.’

Ezekiel nods. ‘Yeah. I’ve looked into her before we started working here.’ Jake frowns at that, and Ezekiel shrugs. ‘Don’t look at me like that, cowboy. I looked into all of you. Gotta know who my team’s gonna be.’

Jake rolls his eyes but says nothing, so Ezekiel continues: ‘I looked into her and it was _bad_. She’s been completely alone for at least seven years, and I’m guessing life with her parents wasn’t filled with happy sunshine and rainbows either.’

‘It definitely wasn’t,’ Jake says, remembering the hurt that had crossed Cassandra’s face when he told her ‘family ain’t easy’ and thinking: S _even years. What the fuck._

Before he can even begin to imagine what Cassandra must have gone through, Ezekiel fills in the blanks: ‘So she’s been going for years without any kind of affection. Without anyone being nice to her. And she probably thought she was doing fine, because you don’t miss something that’s never been there, but now she’s here. And we’re being nice to her. And you,’ Ezekiel says with a half accusing glare at Jake, ‘have been touching her a lot.’

Jake bristles at that. ‘Hang on Jones, you’re the one who’s always poking her!’

‘Yeah, but you’re the one who’s always going for the full-body grabs whenever we’re on a case and she’s doing maths, to ‘keep her grounded’ as you call it.’

Okay, that’s fair. Maybe Jake has on one or two occasions wrapped an arm around Cassandra to keep her steady when she started swaying, but: ‘I could hardly let her fall down now, could I?’

Ezekiel shrugs. ‘I know. And I’m not saying you did something wrong there, it’s just.’ He pauses for a second and then says: ‘As far as I can tell, she’s never had that happen before. And now she’s discovered she actually needs it, and she doesn’t know what to do.’

Because you can’t actually come up to someone and tell them ‘hey, I need you to hold me for about an hour’, no matter how desperately you might want to. Jake gets it. He also has a nagging suspicion that Ezekiel is talking from some sort of personal experience here, judging from the way he is staring off into the hallway again and avoiding Jake’s eyes. Jake doesn’t know much about Ezekiel’s life before they came to the Library, except that it was ‘epic’ and ‘ awesome’, but he doubts it was as universally rosy as Ezekiel likes to sketch it. ‘Jones,’ he says softly, ‘if you want to go after her, just go. Don’t waste time explaining things to me, just go.’

Ezekiel looks up and grins, looking his usual unconcerned self again. ‘Nah. She likes you better. You go.’

Jake doesn’t think that’s entirely true, but he also does not want to leave Cassandra out there alone any longer. So instead of asking Ezekiel if he’s sure, he just nods and sets off in the direction of the Library.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid _stupid._ The word keeps running round and round in Cassandra’s mind as she paces up and down through the towering bookshelves, mocking and jeering because she has been so monumentally stupid in storming off like that. All this time, she has never let anyone know how much their touching and affection affected her and she could have kept it that way, but no. She had to freak out and run away instead of just staying where she was, counting her heartbeats under her breath like she always did and which always calmed her down. Eventually. _Stupid._

Now the others will know something is wrong, and they will want to know _what_ is wrong. They will ask questions Cassandra does not want to answer, or isn’t even sure _how_ to answer. They will want to help her and she doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to _need_ their help, but at the same time she is desperate for _something_ she can’t really put a name to.

Perhaps because _something_ has grown so big at this point, it almost has become _everything._

There are footsteps, heavy footsteps and they’re coming her way. She stands still, frozen to the spot and unable to decide what would be worse: running away so no one will find her or staying put and face whatever happens next.

She is still trying to decide what to do, when Jake rounds the corner. He stops when he sees her, a soft expression on his face that Cassandra can’t bear to look at.

‘Hey,’ he says, his voice low and gentle. ‘You okay?’

Cassandra shakes her head, not even knowing where to begin explaining how much she is not okay. Jake seems to understand, though. He nods and he gives a small smile and he seems to understand and that is just weird. He moves a little closer, slowly and carefully as if he’s worried she will run away again (she might) and says: ‘So me and Jones have been talking.’ And that explains a lot.

Because Cassandra has seen the way Ezekiel has been watching her, and she knows he at least understands a little of what’s going on. She also knows what he’s been trying to do when he brushes his fingers over her shoulder, starts playing with her hair or ‘accidentally’ bumps into her when they’re all crowding around the clippings book. He has been showing her the kind of casual affection that is still very new and a bit unnerving, but at the same time a lot easier to handle than Jake holding her close or Eve’s bear hugs. And if Ezekiel has explained this already to Jake, then that means…

If Ezekiel explained things to Jake, and Jake is now here, then that means things might not be so bad after all.

Relief rushes through her in a flood that’s so strong she almost doesn’t hear Jake say: ‘So, if there. If there’s anything you need, you know I’m right here. Anything you need, Cassie.’

He is standing very close to her now, so close that she can feel the heat radiating off him. Jake is always so warm and she has been so cold for so, so long and she wants to turn to him and give in to what he’s offering her, but she still hesitates, hovering on the edge of a precipice she is still scared to step over. Because if she does, she knows she will not be able to let go for a really long time.

Then Jake says ‘Cassie,’ in that same low voice again and all her resolve falls away. She reaches out and feels two strong arms catch her, pulling her tight against a broad, solid chest. One arm wraps around her waist and the other around her shoulders, a large hand cradling the back of her head as she buries her face in Jake’s shirt. He is talking to her again, his lips brushing against her ear as he murmurs something she doesn’t hear because she is too caught up in the sensation of _safe_ and _warm_ and _good,_ too caught up in feeling like she’s drowning in the best way possible. She closes her eyes and scrunches her hands in Jake’s shirt, clinging to him as if for dear life, bracing herself against the wave after wave of want and need that are finally breaking through the surface. She doesn’t start crying, but it’s a close call. And all the while, Jake holds her close, stroking her hair, rubbing a soothing path up and down her back and rocking her a little from side to side when she starts to tremble a little too much and her breathing gets even more ragged than it already is.

Bit by bit, Cassandra’s breathing evens out. She becomes vaguely aware of the death grip she has on Jake and she tries to relax her hands a little and she even manages to push back against his arms a bit, because they’ve been here for at least ten minutes now and she might not have much experience with hugs (which is kind of the problem here), but she knows they don’t usually last this long. Jake steps back a little too. He takes one of his arms away and the sudden loss of warmth against her back makes Cassandra realize that she is not actually ready to let go. Something of that realization must show in her face, because Jake takes one look at her and pulls her right back in.

‘Mmmkay,’ Cassandra attempts to say around a mouthful of slightly damp shirt. She peels her face free and tries again. ‘I’m okay.’

She’s not okay, not yet, but now she knows will be and that’s what counts. Right?

‘No,’ Jake says, his voice rough and his stubble rasping against her cheek. ‘You’re not okay yet and I’m not letting go of you until you are.’ He pauses to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, a tender gesture that brings a fresh lump to Cassandra’s throat. ‘You stay here and take as long as you need.’

She’s not actually going to argue with that. So she settles back in against Jake, less frantic than before but still very much needing him. Jake’s arms wrap around her again and she revels in the feeling of being held close like this, so close that she can hear Jake’s heartbeat drum faintly in her ear. It’s a simple, steady pattern and she can see the graph forming in her mind, smaller and larger peaks followed by their valleys.

They are breathing in tandem now and Cassandra has relaxed almost completely when Jake starts and moves one of his hands away. Cassandra immediately stiffens because _not yet,_ but Jake gives a squeeze with his other arm and mutters: ‘Jones just walked in here. You want him to join in as well, or is that gonna be too much?’

Ezekiel told Jake what was going on so she wouldn’t have to. As far as Cassandra is concerned, he can do anything he wants right now. ‘Not too much,’ she whispers back. She feels Jake nod and a couple of seconds later, she hears footsteps coming up behind her. Light fingers brush against her shoulder and she can hear the fond smile in Ezekiel’s voice as he asks: ‘How are you doing in there, princess?’

She turns her head and smiles back at him, barely able to contain the gratitude rising up inside her. ‘Come here,’ she whispers, holding on to Jake with one hand and using the other to reach for Ezekiel, who doesn’t need to be told twice. It requires some coordination, but soon Cassandra is wrapped up in four strong arms with Jake pressed up against her on one side and Ezekiel shielding her on the other.

They stay like that for a while. At first they are just breathing together and letting touches speak for themselves: Jake’s hand rubbing firmly across her shoulder, Ezekiel’s fingers carding through her hair and Cassandra squeezing both of them as tight as she can and letting the love and care and affection seep down into her bones and warm her up from the inside out.

Then Ezekiel (of course it’s Ezekiel) starts talking, whisper-telling them about one of his famous heists, which makes Cassandra giggle and Jake groan. When Ezekiel is done, Jake says that he can also tell her a story or two, but that they’ve been standing here for almost half an hour now and that they should probably sit down. Cassandra and Ezekiel both agree and so the three of them, still keeping a firm hold of each other, move to one of the Library’s reading nooks, where they sit themselves down on a ratty old couch with Cassandra in the middle. There, Jake tells them the story of Robin Hood because he knows it will annoy Ezekiel and because Cassandra has never even seen the Disney movie so the tale is brand new to her. He is right: Ezekiel makes a pained noise and shoots him a death glare over Cassandra’s head as soon as Jake says the words ‘robbed the rich and gave to the poor,’ which makes Cassandra collapse in a fit of giggles again.

After that, silence reigns again until Cassandra speaks up and the mood changes. She tells Jake and Ezekiel a story about seven years of loneliness caused by a death sentence and shitty family members. It’s a painful story, a story full of hurt and anger and despair, but it’s a story that needs to be told and the boys know it. So they listen and they hold her, let her dry her eyes on Ezekiel’s shirt and grip Jake’s arm so hard he’ll definitely have bruises tomorrow. They hold her until long after she’s stopped talking and her tears have dried up, quietly promising her that _that_ is never going to happen to her ever again. They won’t let it.

‘I know,’ Cassandra whispers. Her eyes are closed and her cheek is resting against Ezekiel’s shoulder. Jake’s hands are wrapped around her own and surrounded like this, she feels like she can breathe freely again for the first time in ages.


End file.
